Fermenting malt a success, repaying the effort (5,2)

'repaying the effort' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.

'fermenting malt a success' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'malt' could be 'wort' (wort is a kind of malt) and 'wort' is found in the answer.
'success' could be 'hit' (hit is a kind of success) and 'hit' is present in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?